Dr Erich Round
Linguistics Discipline
Associate Professor
School of Languages and Cultures
+61 7 336 56892

Researcher biography
In 2021–2024 Dr Erich Round takes up a position as British Academy Global Professor, located at the Surrey Morphology Group, University of Surrey, UK. In 2019 Dr Erich Round was on secondment as a Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany, and in 2018 was a British Academy Rutherford Fellow hosted by the Surrey Morphology Group, UK. At UQ Dr Round has been an ARC DECRA Senior Research Fellow in 2015–2018 and is Director of the UQ Ancient Language Lab in the School of Languages and Cultures, UQ. Previously Dr Round was an National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Associate at Yale University, where he also received his PhD in Linguistics.
Publications
Books
Gerd Carling, Abregov, Acherdan, Aliyev, Elnur, Avidzba, Leila, Cathcart, Chundra, Chukhua, Merab, Cronhamn, Sandra, Farren, Robert, Frid, Johan, Goergens, Anne, Greidanus, Josien, Gvantszeladze, Teimuraz, Hammarström, Harald, Holmer, Arthur, Johansson, Niklas, Khalilov, Madzhid, Kuckovic, Edin, Larsson, Filip, Larsson, Karin, Lomadze, Tamar, Novén, Mikael, Petrović, Ante, Round, Erich, Söderqvist, Kajsa, Tchantouria, Revaz, Tetradze, Maka, Tuptsokova, Larisa, Vamling, Karina, Van Epps, Briana ... Zimmermann, Astrid (2019). The Mouton atlas of languages and cultures. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter Mouton.
Round, Erich (2013). Kayardild morphology and syntax. Oxford United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654871.001.0001
Book Chapters
Carling, Gerd, Cathcart, Chundra and Round, Erich (2022). Reconstructing the origins of language families and variation. The Oxford handbook of human symbolic evolution. (pp. *-*) edited by Nathalie Gontier, Andy Lock and Chris Sinha. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198813781.013.34
Round, Erich R. (2019). Rara and theory testing in typology: the natural evolution of non-canonical agreement. Morphological perspectives: papers in honour of Greville G. Corbett. (pp. 414-446) edited by Oliver Bond, Matthew Baerman and Andrew Hippisley. Edinburgh, United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press.
Round, Erich (2017). Phonological exceptionality is localized to phonological elements: the argument from learnability and Yidiny word-final deletion. On looking into words (and beyond): structures, relations, analyses. (pp. 59-98) edited by Claire Bowern, Laurence Horn and Raffaella Zanuttini. Berlin, Germany: Language Sciences Press. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.495467
Round, Erich (2017). The Tangkic languages of Australia: phonology and morphosyntax of Lardil, Kayardild, and Yukulta. Oxford research encyclopedia of linguistics. (pp. 1-7) edited by Mark Aronoff. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.159
Round, Erich R. (2016). Kayardild inflectional morphotactics is morphomic. The morphome debate. (pp. 228-247) edited by Ana R. Luis and Ricardo Bermudez-Otero. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Memmott, Paul, Round, Erich, Rosendahl, Daniel and Ulm, Sean (2016). Fission, fusion and syncretism: linguistic and environmental changes amongst the Tangkic people of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria, Northern Australia. Land and language in Cape York Peninsula and the Gulf Country. (pp. 105-136) edited by Jean-Christophe Verstraete and Hafner, Diane. Philadelphia, United States: John Benjamins Publishing Company. doi: 10.1075/clu.18.06mem
Round, Erich (2015). Yukulta and its relatives Kayardild and Lardil. Edinburgh handbook of evaluative morphology. (pp. 448-452) edited by Nicola Grandi and Livia Kortvelyessy. Edinburgh, United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press.
Round, Erich (2015). Rhizomorphomes, meromorphomes, and metamorphomes. Understanding and measuring morphological complexity. (pp. 29-52) edited by Matthew Baerman, Dunstan Brown and Greville G. Corbett. London, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198723769.003.0003
Round, Erich (2014). Prestopping of nasals and laterals is only partly parallel. Language description informed by theory. (pp. 81-95) edited by Rob Pensalfini, Myfany Turpin and Diana Guillemin. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing. doi: 10.1075/slcs.147.05rou
Round, Erich R. (2009). Syntactic reconstruction by phonology: Edge aligned reconstruction and its application to Tangkic truncation. Grammatical change: Theory and description. (pp. 65-82) edited by Rachel Hendery and Jennifer Hendriks. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Centre for Research in Language Change (CLRC); Pacific Linguistics.
Round, Erich and Evans, Nick (2004). Kayardild. Världens språk: En geografisk och typologisk översikt. (pp. xx-xx) edited by Karina Vamling and Jan-Olof Svantesson. Lund, Sweden: Institutionen för lingvistik, Lund University.
Journal Articles
Yin, Ruihua, van de Weijer, Jeroen and Round, Erich R. (2023). Frequent violation of the sonority sequencing principle in hundreds of languages: how often and by which sequences?. Linguistic Typology. doi: 10.1515/lingty-2022-0038
Round, Erich R. (2023). Canonical phonology and criterial conflicts: relating and resolving four dilemmas of phonological typology. Linguistic Typology. doi: 10.1515/lingty-2022-0032
Miceli, Luisa and Round, Erich (2022). Where have all the sound changes gone? Examining the scarcity of evidence for regular sound change in Australian languages. Linguistics Vanguard, 8 (s5), 509-518. doi: 10.1515/lingvan-2021-0094
Round, Erich, Dockum, Rikker and Ryder, Robin J. (2022). Evolution and trade-off dynamics of functional load. Entropy, 24 (4) 507. doi: 10.3390/e24040507
Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. and Round, Erich R. (2022). Challenges of sampling and how phylogenetic comparative methods help: with a case study of the Pama-Nyungan laminal contrast. Linguistic Typology, 26 (3), 533-572. doi: 10.1515/lingty-2021-0025
Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L., Bowern, Claire and Round, Erich R. (2021). Phylogenetic signal in phonotactics. Diachronica, 38 (2), 210-258. doi: 10.1075/dia.20004.mac
Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L. and Round, Erich R. (2020). Re-evaluating Phoneme Frequencies. Frontiers in Psychology, 11 570895, 570895. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.570895
Round, Erich R. and Corbett, Greville G. (2020). Comparability and measurement in typological science: The bright future for linguistics. Linguistic Typology, 24 (3), 489-525. doi: 10.1515/lingty-2020-2060
Carling, Gerd, Larsson, Filip, Cathcart, Chundra A., Johansson, Niklas, Holmer, Arthur, Round, Erich and Verhoeven, Rob (2018). Diachronic atlas of comparative linguistics (DiACL)- a database for ancient language typology. PLoS ONE, 13 (10) e0205313, e0205313. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205313
Cathcart, Chundra, Carling, Gerd, Larsson, Filip, Johansson, Niklas and Round, Erich (2018). Areal pressure in grammatical evolution. Diachronica, 35 (1), 1-34. doi: 10.1075/dia.16035.cat
Round, Erich R. (2017). "Phonological Typology" by Matthew K. Gordon. Folia Linguistica: Acta Societatis Linguisticae Europaeae, 51 (3), 745-755. doi: 10.1515/flin-2017-0027
Rossetto, Maurizio, Ens, Emilie J., Honings, Thijs, Wilson, Peter D., Yap, Jia-Yee S., Costello, Oliver, Round, Erich R. and Bowern, Claire (2017). From Songlines to genomes: prehistoric assisted migration of a rain forest tree by Australian Aboriginal people. PLoS One, 12 (11) e0186663, 1-15. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0186663
Ennever, Thomas, Meakins, Felicity and Round, Erich (2017). A replicable acoustic measure of lenition and the nature of variability in Gurindji stops. Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology, 8 (1). doi: 10.5334/labphon.18
Round, Erich and Corbett, Greville G. (2016). The theory of feature systems: one feature versus two for Kayardild tense-aspect-mood. Morphology, 27 (1), 1-55. doi: 10.1007/s11525-016-9294-3
Round, Erich and Stirling, Lesley (2015). Universals of split argument coding and morphological neutralization: why Kala Lagaw Ya is not as bizarre as we thought. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 35 (3), 251-281. doi: 10.1080/07268602.2015.1023171
Kwon, Nahyun and Round, Erich R. (2014). Phonaesthemes in morphological theory. Morphology, 25 (1), 1-27. doi: 10.1007/s11525-014-9250-z
Round, Erich (2011). Word final phonology in Lardil: Implications of an expanded data set. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 31 (3), 327-350. doi: 10.1080/07268602.2011.598630
Round, Erich (2011). Function word erosion which is not a frequency effect: On exemplars and prosodic paradigm levelling. Lingua, 121 (2), 287-301. doi: 10.1016/j.lingua.2010.09.006
Round, Erich R. (2011). Morphomes as a level of representation capture unity of exponence across the inflection-derivation divide. Linguistica, 51 (1), 217-230. doi: 10.4312/linguistica.51.1.217-230
Hunter, Jessica, Bowen, Claire and Round, Erich R. (2011). Reappraising the effects of language contact in the Torres Strait. Journal of Language Contact, 4 (THEMA I), 106-140. doi: 10.1163/187740911X558798
Round, Erich R. (2004). The subidentificational meanings of English some and Swedish Nagon: a comparative analysis of polysemy. Nordic Journal of Linguistics, 27 (2), 169-195. doi: 10.1017/S0332586504001234
Conference Papers
Round, Erich R., Mann, Stephen, Beniamine, Sacha, Lindsay-Smith, Emily, Esher, Louise and Spike, Matthew (2022). Cognition and the stability of evolving complex morphology: an agent-based model. Joint Conference on Language Evolution, Kanazawa, Japan, 5-8 September 2022. Kanazawa, Japan: Joint Conference on Language Evolution .
Round, Erich R., Macklin-Cordes, Jayden L., Ellison, Mark T. and Beniamine, Sacha (2020). Automated parsing of interlinear glossed text from page images of grammatical descriptions. Language Resources and Evaluation Conference, Marseille, France, 11-16 May 2020. Marseille, France: European Language Resources Association.
Beniamine, Sacha, Maiden, Martin and Round, Erich (2020). Opening the Romance Verbal Inflection Dataset 2.0: a CLDF Lexicon. Language Resources and Evaluation Conference, Marseille, France, 11-16 May 2020. Marseille, France: European Language Resources Association.
Macklin-Cordes, Jayden and Round, Erich (2015). High-definition phonotactics reflect linguistic pasts. 6th Quantitative Investigations in Theoretical Linguistics Conference, Tubingen, Germany, 4-6 November 2015. Tubingen, Germany: University of Tubingen. doi: 10.15496/publikation-8609
Round, Erich (2012). Apical obstruents in pre-proto-Tangkic and the origins of the non-zero absolutive. Berkeley Linguistics Society, Berkeley, CA, United States, 10-12 February 2006. Berkeley, CA, United States: Berkeley Linguistics Society.
Round, Erich R. (2012). Durational correlates of prosodic structure in Kayardild vowels. 14th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, Sydney, Australia, 3 - 6 December 2012. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Australasian Association of Speech Science and Speech Technology.
Round, Erich R. (2010). Tone height binarity and register in intonation: The case from Kayardild (Australian). Every Language, Every Style: Speech Prosody 2010, 5th International Conference, Chicago, IL, U.S.A., 11-13 May 2010. Chicago IL USA: SProSIG/ISCA.
Paul, Paula, Loogatha, Netta, Loogatha, Amy, Thomas, Ethel, Loogatha, Dolly, Evans, Brett, Evans, Nicholas, Tomkins, Helene, Rosendahl, Daniel, Ulm, Sean, Round, Erich and Memmott, Paul (2009). Kayardilt fish names: Spoken by the Kaiadilt of Bentinck Island. xx, Mornington Island, Australia, 2009. Gununa, QLD: Mirndiyan Gununa Aboriginal Corporation.
Round, E. (2005). Knowing the meaning of names in use, with particular reference to the appellative use of names in English and Swedish. University of Melbourne. School of Languages. 4th Postgraduate Conference, Graduate Centre, University of Melbourne, 2003. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Graduate Centre, University of Melbourne.
Round, Erich (2004). Case marking in Kalaw Lagaw Ya: Not as bizarre as we thought. CamLing 2003: University of Cambridge First Postgraduate Conference in Language Research, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 26 April 2003. Cambridge, United Kingdom: The Cambridge Institute of Language Research.
Fletcher, Janet, Evans, Nicholas and Round, Erich (2002). Left-edge tonal events in Kayardild (Australian) — A typological perspective. Speech Prosody 2002: An International Conference, Aix-en-Provence, France, 11-13 April 2002. ISCA Archive: International Speech Communication Association.
Data Collection
Macklin-Cordes, Jayden and Round, Erich (2021). Pama-Nyungan tree inference with phonotactics: Supplementary data. The University of Queensland. (Dataset) doi: 10.14264/4e5077e
Creative Works
Round, Erich, Mushin, Ilana, Alvey, Elizabeth, Yu, Fei and Hornsby, Eric (2015). Indigenous voices of Queensland. Brisbane, QLD, Australia: The University of Queensland.
Round, Erich R. (2007). Ngald (Us). New Haven, CT, U.S.A.: Yale University.
Round, Erich R. (2007). Kaiadilt lullabies. New Haven, CT, U.S.A.: Yale University.
Round, Erich R. (2007). Linguistic and ethnographic documentation of Kayardild. London, U.K.: The Endangered Languages Archive, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Naranatjil, Dawn, Thomas, Ethel, Paul, Paula, Loogatha, Amy, Loogatha, Netta, Moondoonuthi, May and Round, Erich R. (2007). Ngunguk, bana ngunguk, bana ngunguk, bana ngunguk, bana ngunguk, bana ngunguk: Six stories by the women of Bentinck Island. New Haven, CT, U.S.A.: Yale University.
Round, Erich R. (2005). Bijarrb (Dugong). New Haven, CT, U.S.A.: Yale University.
Round, Erich R. (2005). Rarumbanda wangarr, rarumbanda ngunguk (Bentinck song, Bentinck stories). New Haven, CT, U.S.A.: Yale University.
Naranatjil, Dawn, Loogootha, Amy, Thomas, Ethel and Round, Erich R. (2005). Ngimiwaanda wurand (Night food). New Haven, CT, U.S.A.: Yale University.
Goldstein, Louis and Round, Erich R. (2005). A first Kayardild audiovisual text corpus, with prosodic annotations. London, U.K.: The Endangered Languages Archive, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.